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Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

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Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#371

Post by bottlepalm »

trts wrote: post #326
emkoemko wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA?

NASA’s budget for 2022 is about $24 billion or roughly $145-$150 per working person. Perhaps a lot of money depending on what you think should be prioritized. personally I think it’s hard to argue that they aren’t delivering something of high value to humanity, especially recently with the success of the JWST. And maybe very especially compared to other agencies.

NASA is wasting the bulk of their funding in an obsolete launch system. Over the he past 50 years they have held back any economical progress in access to space.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nasas-artemis-rocket...

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#372

Post by 3pt14159 »

duffpkg wrote: post #89
e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider the amount that the US spends per capita on healthcare relative to other countries for the same standard of care a "failure" of the healthcare industry? Or is there some other reason healthcare "just costs more" here? Also wondering what you think a solution is - single-payer for better and simpler price negotiations, or some other approach? My main concern is if we're spending 20% of GDP on something…

Healthcare is such a base layer of the economy, I find comparisons to be extraordinaly difficult between countries. On the most basic level our pathway to becoming a healthcare provider of all sorts is dramatically more expensive and limited than other countries, what healthcare providers are paid is dramatically more than other countries, we invest many times per capita what other countries put into basic medical re…

I understand you're the relative expert here, but even so I must disagree with your general thrust.

I've been hospitalized in four different countries. The least sane was America. The sanest was a private hospital in England, but the public hospital in England was fine too. My home country of Canada is sane, reliable, and reliably slow and mediocre bordering on subpar. Cyprus lacked toilet seats, but at least the food was fantastic.

America's healthcare system is bananas. Even trying to come up with a metaphor here is difficult. It's $5k a day stays with Wonderbread, tuna, and bad not-actually-mayo-mayo for lunch. It's well groomed, well respected, monied indentured second and third opinion servants. It's Moloch's own mediation on Moloch[0] sold on the discount rack of the bookstore pharmacy downstairs.

You can think Americans are different. They are not. They move to Canada all the time and we service their bum knees just fine.

You can think Americans do all the medical research in the world. They don't. Plenty comes out of Europe, China, and elsewhere.

You can think your tax code is unique. Ok this one I kinda agree with. It's almost as bananas as your medical system. But it doesn't change the fact that Americans put up with absolute bananaspants insanity for a healthcare system when they're perfectly capable of funding their libraries and roads.

China beats you on scale. And so on.

The basic fact is that Americans have what is essentially a psychopathic medical system at the best of times. One can negotiate with a psychopath, but Kafka returns your offer with a can of stale soup and doesn't even laugh.

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#373

Post by CogitoCogito »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #6

Anyone else get the feeling this is malicious compliance on behalf of the insurance companies? "Oh, they're going to force us to publish our prices are they? Well we'll publish so much data it'll take a herculean effort to make it readable to anyone that doesn't work in data engineering"

They should be forced to provide the costs of procedures up front. As in the whole procedures not just provide prices for a million sub-procedures that the _might_ bill you for. This is how it works in basically every industry. Healthcare tries to argue that it's impossible for them to do this, but is just a load of bullshit.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#374

Post by pvarangot »

dfinninger wrote: post #367
jaarse wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a Canadian, and I would never want to give up our single payer system. That being said, Canada has a huge health care problem right now. Frequently they need to close emergency services in major (& minor) cities at night due to staff shortages. The wait times for basic diagnostics is on the order of months (not days or weeks). For example, a relative of mine has lost 90 pounds since the start of the year, complai…

Well, I'm here in a major metro area of the US and it's 6 months or more for every doctor I try to see. Very difficult to get in to see anyone for anything.

What's that major metro area? I'm in San Francisco and I have family in Boulder and in both primary care is like one or two weeks. Dermatology was a week and a half for me. A few months ago I needed imagining for a foot thing and it took three days for ultrasound and one week for an MRI. I thought this was the norm on big urban centers.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#375

Post by Xx25 »

What happens if we mandate that hospitals cannot charge patients more than the lowest negotiated price they have for any procedure? That is to say, if you have offered to perform a procedure for $X, you can not charge anyone more than $X for the same procedure.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#376

Post by cycomanic »

chii wrote: post #253
seaourfreed wrote: post #246

USA Healthcare is 19.5% of GDP. Canada + Australia + UK + (a few similar countries) average 10.5% of GDP. The USA healthcare price gouges via run away prices. Healthcare corporations corrupting congress is the fuel that forces this on people (and breaks a free market).

But looking from another perspective - if healthcare is 20% of GDP, an awful amount of people are therefore paid directly due to this "waste". Any improvement in efficiency would mean those people lose out on jobs. A new use for them must be found, or there will be massive unemployment (at least, short-medium term).

There was a quote by an opposition politician in Germany to the argument that Germany should buy the Eurofighter (which had huge cost overruns etc.) because it creates jobs. Loosely translated: "We can also build a pyramid for Helmut Kohl [chancellor at the time] if the goal is to create jobs".

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#377

Post by echelon »

ahtihn wrote: post #368
echelon wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people genetically predisposed to gain weight or have heart disease. Cancer can be Russian roulette, as is your immune system picking up random autoimmune disorders. Accidents happen. There are too many stakeholders with too many backgrounds and conditions for anything like your proposed system to work. Everyone would be angry.

> There are people genetically predisposed to gain weight And this genetic mutation somehow happened in the last 50-100 years or so? Obese people have always existed. Obese poor people are fairly new. The root cause is diet, not genetics.

Human HLA / MHC have a significant role in gut microbiota composition.

Gut flora, in turn, play a significant role in hormone and appetite.

The interactions are complex, but genetics contributes to obesity.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#378

Post by ggrrhh_ta »

atdrummond wrote: post #314
ggrrhh_ta wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But another way in which Switzerland maintains its healthcare system with public money is through the -often deficitary- cantonal hospitals/clinics/health care centers (also helped at the municipal level)

As a heads up, ‘deficitary’ doesn’t mean ‘deficit running’ in English. It is closer to the word ‘deficient’ which I don’t think is your intended meaning. Thanks for the insightful comments.

Thanks for the comment! I was meaning the former (under debt).

The intention of my comments was to make clear that in that regard, Switzerland is not an efficient free market private insurance paradise. There are lots of nuances to it, and the private insurance system in fact brings in inefficiencies, namely, a very complex and costly cost itemization and enormous amounts of paperwork and stress for doctors, customers, employers, and the insurances (for example, if there is an accident in a public place involving a car, there are at least one or two days worth of people's times just filling in forms)

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#379

Post by Xx25 »

RoadieRoller wrote: post #285

India is considered a "cheap and poor" country in many ways. It's GDP is 1/10th that of United States. Even then, India has free health care, and in many states (out of the 30+ states), Govt run healthcare is the best. Woman give birth to babies and walk out paying almost nothing, men break their bones and walk out paying nothing after a month of staying in hospitals and such. Insurance is never heard of or forced to…

Nominal GDP is not the best way to compare countries in these matters. Purchasing power parity might be a better metric as we are talking about service Indians can get in their own country.

Re: Health insurers just published close to a trillion hospital prices

#380

Post by atdrummond »

ggrrhh_ta wrote: post #378
atdrummond wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a heads up, ‘deficitary’ doesn’t mean ‘deficit running’ in English. It is closer to the word ‘deficient’ which I don’t think is your intended meaning. Thanks for the insightful comments.

Thanks for the comment! I was meaning the former (under debt). The intention of my comments was to make clear that in that regard, Switzerland is not an efficient free market private insurance paradise. There are lots of nuances to it, and the private insurance system in fact brings in inefficiencies, namely, a very complex and costly cost itemization and enormous amounts of paperwork and stress for doctors, customer…

OK - sorry then! That makes total sense too; I was simply reading too much into the payments discussion happening. Thanks for being polite and for your contributions.
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